The Gong Show was a quirky and absurdly amusing talent show from the 70s.
It was created, produced, and hosted for a number of years by Chuck Barris.
The gong was beaten by one or more judges when they’d had enough of an act.
In reviewing
— Mark Prus, Principal Nameflash
About two and a half years ago, Brandless was launched. The company sold “unbranded” household, personal care, baby, and pet products on the cheap and was viewed as a breakthrough in the “anti-branding” movement.
Today, Brandless is dead.
LOS ANGELES, CA – APRIL 30: A
One of my friends, when playing blackjack and asked to “cut the deck” after it has been shuffled, consistently admonishes without hesitation: “Thin to win.”
Given the trademark story for today, you may end up believing the opposite.
A 6-year trademark fight between Frito-Lay and Real Foods ended this month.
Frito-Lay opposed Real Foods’
It all started here, nearly ten years ago now, with our inaugural DuetsBlog post called Dr. No and the Parade of Horribles. We used a Seth Godin post called Looking for Yes as our launchpad.
The rest is history. Seth revealed himself a fan of the blog on our 4th birthday, what a surprise. He generously has engaged with us since then, weighing in on topics ranging from branding to trademark bullying to Velcro’s fear of trademark genericide, with so much more in between.
Recently, Seth generously agreed to answer the 12 questions below. What should we ask next?Continue Reading Seth Godin Answers 12 DuetsBlog Questions
We’ve been down this road before, some themes intersect, and trademark value is filtered out:
The intersecting themes on tap for the day are: Zero, Branding, Trademarks, and Loss of Rights.
ZEROWATER is a perfectly suggestive, inherently distinctive, and federally-registered trademark with “incontestable” status as a source-identifier for “water filtering units
Yeah, we usually mean this Apple, when we spill digital ink, not today, instead the edible varieties:
Hat tip to Erik Pelton who tweeted about the federal registration of LUDACRISP for fresh apples.
We know something about non-ludicrous trademark protection for apples > First Kiss and Rave.
They are newly minted brands
In April, news broke that two iconic alcohol brands were joining forces to create a remarkable new beer: Jim Beam Budweiser Copper Lager. Fruit of the joint labor is now available for consumption:
The unique combination doesn’t appear destined to fall flat, as in the early days since launch, it seems to be
Taking our discussion about Coke Zero a little further than Monday’s discussion, is it any wonder that “zero” stands for nothing, none, nada, when it comes to calories, given icons like this one:
In other words, it doesn’t and it can’t hold trademark significance for calorie-free, no-calorie, or zero-calorie food products and beverages,
We’ve been writing about the COKE ZERO trademark for nearly a decade now, noting in 2014:
“[I]t will be worth watching to see whether the [TTAB] finds that ‘ZERO’ primarily means Coke or just a soft drink having ‘no calories, you know, a drink about nothing . . . .’”
Turns out, in May
You never really need to wonder where the beef empanadas are, inside the display case, at least at Whole Foods, given the literal “beef” branding — visible on the edge of each outer dough shell.
This is a good example of a word appearing on a product that does not function as a trademark,